


His Voice

by FandomDancer



Category: Alphas (TV)
Genre: Awakening, Distrust, Fear, Gen, Platonic Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21823864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomDancer/pseuds/FandomDancer
Summary: Rachel Pirzad is overwhelmed and has cocooned herself away, just like she did when she was a little girl. But Doctor Rosen's voice reminds her that there is a world she needs to get back to, people she needs to be with, and inner strength she has to build.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	His Voice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doranwen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doranwen/gifts).



His Voice

_It hurts._

_Everything hurts._

A long time ago, before Rachel Pirzad had turned her back on medicine, she had devoured every book she could possibly get her hands on about diseases and treatments. With her father as a doctor, it only made sense that she was exposed, to some extent, to the microscopic, biological world of viruses, white blood cells, and DNA.

_It’s so bright. I should close the curtains. But then I would have to move, and this bed…there’s something wrong. A spring is loose. It hurts to move. And the laundry downstairs. So strong. The smell. I’m going to be sick._

_It hurts._

_Don’t move. You’re safe as long as you don’t move._

As a child, she had immediately noticed the overstimulation of the world, and rapidly found herself drowning within it. She had studied nerve disease, skin disease, even muscular disease, in an effort to understand why touch could drive her mad. For a long time, she had self-diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, plus germaphobia. Her parents had chosen a much easier route: hypochondria.

_Footsteps. Someone’s coming. No, two. Two men. Papa is bringing someone. No, Papa. I don’t want to see anyone. I can’t. He’s gone. There’s no one that can help me. Not even you._

_What am I going to do?_

It took years for Rachel to convince them it wasn’t all in her head, and even more years for them to accept that there was no name for what was going on inside their daughter’s body. By then, however, Rachel had burned herself out on medicine. She couldn’t diagnose herself, and her father couldn’t practice in America. It was over.

Until him.

“Rachel?”

His voice pulled at her, the soft and steady tone that in some way brought her more comfort than anything she had ever known. His voice could break her heart in one sentence and dry her tears the next. She supposed there was a part of her that hated his control over her, but she knew it was only control that she gave him.

“Rachel?”

She moved her hands from her eyes. The white-yellow sunlight blared across the room, ricocheting off of the walls and slamming into her optic nerves. She wanted to shut down her vision, but then the bed would hurt again, or the sound of the laundry being folded downstairs would break her eardrums, or the smell…

His smell. Chlorine. Wheatgrass.

“Hi.”

Rachel focused on the figures in front of her, and wondered if her downside had just gained another ability. _Am I hallucinating now?_ She opened her mouth. It took so much strength to speak.

“Doctor Rosen?”

Her papa smiled. But Lee Rosen smiled bigger, in the only way he could. His lips curled ever so subtle under the salt and pepper beard on his face, and his eyes crinkled slightly.

“I thought I’d never see you again.” The next sentence came without warning, without even her conscious permission to use it. Her voice was disbelieving, almost accusatory.

“I know.” How many times she heard him say that, and each time with a different emotion attached to it? This one was heavy, and sure, and sorrowful. The smile faded, grief revealing the years that had piled on him in the last few months. “But I’m here now, and it’s because I need you. Which means you have to leave this room.”

_Doctor Rosen, come back. I need you._

She had cried the words into her pillow only a couple of nights before. She had felt foolish, like a child throwing a tantrum. She was almost twenty-five, and normal twenty-five-year-old women did not cry because their therapist had gone away. They squared their shoulders and used what little strength they had to push on in life. She had been sickened by her tears, enraged that she could not handle the world outside her bedroom. But then the sun had come up and the laundry had started and everything had pushed her back into the bed for another day of cocooning. _Tomorrow,_ she had thought, _tomorrow I will have the strength, and I won’t need him._

The strength had not come.

“Now,” Rosen said, his velvety voice firm and fair all at once, “you’ve been here before. You know what you have to do.”

Could he read her mind? It wasn’t the first time she had thought it, but now she could see him watching her, his eyes analyzing her, filled with compassion and concern all at once. Could he see the cocoon around her?

Of course he could. That’s why he was telling her to break it. That’s what they had done first. Breaking the cocoon. She stared at him, blinking slowly, still trying to convince herself she wasn’t hallucinating. She had spent so much time fighting her senses. Were they simply fighting back now? Changing her look on reality?

No. He was there. He was real. Otherwise her papa would not look so happy. _Get up, Rachel_ , his face said. _Look who I have brought you._

“Focus on the things that comfort you, tune everything else out, and take a step forward.” Rosen followed his own advice, taking one slow step into her room and reaching his hand out for her.

The heartbeats filled the room next. Three of them, one unchanging, two quickening. Next came the smell of hope. But Rachel didn’t shy from it. She allowed her senses to explode for a brief time as she stared at the hand in front of her. Cortisol. Adrenaline. Dopamine. All colliding within as she chose whether or not to trust the image in front of her.

_The things that comfort you._

“Tell me where we’re going,” she said, her voice almost in a whisper.

“Rachel,” Rosen said warmly, “we’re going to work. I need your instincts. Not just your abilities, your instincts. There are things going on that I don’t understand, and I need you to help me.”

There was something inside of her that said she should be mad. Furious. He stood there in front of her asking for help and he had left them…left her…eight months ago. The urge to throw a tantrum and demand satisfaction of him set a small fire in her belly.

“Where have you been?”

The warmth faded a little from his face. His hand shook. His eyes darted, ever so briefly, to the side. Checking the periphery. “I assure you, Rachel, I was where I needed to be. And while I can’t apologize enough to you for taking my…sabbatical…at such a time, I hope I can make up for it.” He sounded more neutral, almost as though he was giving a rehearsed response. But she could see the look in his eyes. The pleading. _Don’t make me do this here._

Rachel set her jaw and shifted. The broken spring jabbed her, and she whimpered, twisting sideways. She pushed it down, and the heartbeats got louder, beginning to pulse in her head. She pushed them away, and the light filling the room made her eyes close. She fell back against the pillows, grabbing her head, slamming the doors on everything but taste. It was vile. She hadn’t brushed her teeth since that morning. But it was better than _everything all at once._

She came back piece by piece, and there he was again. Her reset had not sent him away. He and her father were both watching her, their eyes concerned. Rosen still had his hand outstretched. She stared at it for several seconds before turning the other way. _If I touch him…_

“I need to get dressed,” she said.

Rosen lowered his hand and nodded. “I’m proud of you, Rachel,” he said quietly, stepping back out of the room. Her papa closed the door, and Rachel activated her hearing as she quickly dressed.

“It is night and day,” her father said. “As soon as she sees you, she wakes up. You are so healthy for her, Doctor Rosen.”

“Rachel is capable of great strength,” Rosen replied. “She would have found her way to her feet whether or not I had come here.”

The feel of his voice soared through her, the smooth steadiness she thought she would never hear again. Now that she had it, she could feel her strength returning. Now that she had it, she could feel how much she had needed it.

Now that she had it, she could tell just how important it was for her to learn how to function without it.

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever Yuletide Challenge. Thank you for reading!


End file.
